Genesis 40:3

Summary

The verse recounts that Pharaoh (the implicit subject of the preceding narrative) placed the two officials in custody, specifically in the house of the commander of the bodyguards, in the same prison where Joseph was being held.

Key words

• va-yiTen ("and he put", H5414H) — qal verb with narrative vav, continuing the story's sequence of past actions; the subject (Pharaoh) is not repeated here but carried from the prior verse.
• mishMar ("custody of", H4929) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning it must be followed by another noun to complete its sense ("custody of the house...").
• sar ha-tabaChim ("commander of the bodyguards", H8269 + H2876) — construct chain: sar ("commander of") governs the definite plural noun tabaChim ("bodyguards"), naming the official in charge of the place of detention.
• meKom ("place of", H4725) — construct noun introducing a relative clause, functioning almost like "the place where..." in English.
• 'aSur ("imprisoned", H0631) — qal passive participle, masculine singular, describing Joseph's ongoing state of confinement rather than a completed action; participles in Hebrew express continuous or resultant states.

What the text says

The sentence is built as a chain of construct nouns (mishMar beit sar ha-tabaChim), literally "the custody of the house of the commander of the bodyguards." This construct chain layers three nested relationships: custody belongs to a house, and that house belongs to an official. Biblical Hebrew often expresses complex institutional relationships this way, without prepositions between each noun, relying instead on the construct state to link them.

The clause meKom 'aSher yoSef 'aSur sham ("the place where Joseph was imprisoned there") uses a relative construction with 'aSher ("that/who", H0834A) followed by a resumptive adverb sham ("there", H8033G). This is a common Hebrew pattern: the relative clause states the general category ("the place that...") and then repeats the locative idea with "there" to complete the sense, a structure not required in English or other target languages, which typically drop the redundant "there."

The participle 'aSur ("imprisoned", H0631) marks Joseph's condition as an ongoing state at the time of the officials' arrival, rather than reporting a single completed act of imprisonment.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders sar ha-tabaChim ("commander of the bodyguards") as "ἀρχιδεσμοφύλακι" (roughly "chief of the guards/jailers"), a single compound term rather than the Hebrew's layered construct chain. The Vulgate simplifies further with "principis militum" ("prince of the soldiers"), omitting the specific sense of tabaChim ("bodyguards", H2876) and instead using a general term for soldiers.